The Christmas Snowball: How to Handle Last-Minute Requests - PHH 133

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Welcome to the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I'm Ann Sullivan, a harpist on a mission to empower every harpist to experience more harp happiness. Over my decades long harp journey, I've had lots of successes and more than a few failures. And I know firsthand what it's like to feel that playing the harp the way you want may not be possible for you. Now, I play and teach all over the world, and I know what most harpists are never taught the secrets to gaining the skills and confidence you need to play the harp with beauty, freedom and joy. That's what the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast is all about. Showing you simple steps to help you play the music you want the way you want. If you're an experienced harpist looking for that next level, or a harp newbie anxious to avoid the pitfalls, or a harpist who just wants more fulfillment and a little encouragement, you're in the right place, my friend. So let's get started. Welcome to the show. Be Prepared. The famous Boy Scout motto. I'm thinking that Boy Scouts have nothing on harpists when it comes to being prepared. We harpists have preparation down whether it's preparing our music or stockings bear strings or packing our heartbag. However, there are times when even the best preparation doesn't help, and you might be about to experience one of those times. Let's call it the Christmas Snowball. The Christmas Snowball shows up when the church music director decides that since you're playing the harp for the service and you're there anyway, it would be a shame not to use the harp for every musical moment possible. So what started as a simple request? Would you come and play the harp for one anthem with the choir on Christmas Eve? Snowballs into an additional anthem, various choral responses during the service, three carols with the congregation, a prelude selection or two, and of course, playing Silent Night during the candle lighting. If you've ever played for a Christmas Eve service, this snowball scenario is probably causing flashbacks. If this year is your first time playing for a Christmas Eve service, I want you to be prepared. Now, a quick note here. This Christmas Eve service scenario is not the only scenario where the Christmas snowball may show up for you, but it's such a common one that that's the one I'm going to be focusing on today. However, feel free to take the techniques we're going to be talking about and the strategies and apply them to any any snowball situation that you face this season. Now, here's the issue. The real danger in the snowball is that it's tempting to roll right along with it until you realize that you're snowed under. I mean, it would be fun to play for the carols. And you think, oh, the other parts don't look too hard. So it's really easy to say yes. And you'd feel a little like the Grinch if you said no. But once you agree to all those snowball extras, it feels more like an avalanche of music and the panic sets in. So, in the words of the season, be not afraid. For behold, I bring you some pretty good ideas for how to learn this extra music fast. And I mean in a couple of days, not a couple of weeks. And I'll tell you how to make smart decisions about what to play and what not to play. And I'll demonstrate some of these choices at the harp so you can hear exactly what I mean. One more thing. We'll talk about the very hardest skill of all. How to just say no. I know it's hard to tell someone no, but I'll help you learn to do it so you don't feel like Scrooge. No. Bah humbugs here. Now, I don't want to add to your Christmas snowball, but I did want to let you know, in case you didn't know, we are running our fourth annual 12 Days of Harp Happiness Promotion. This is a special time when in the first 12 days of December, I offer a brand new harp arrangement that's on sale for the first day it's out. These are 12 brand new arrangements that I'm offering for these first 12 days. And on the day we release a new one, that new arrangement is half off in our shop. So you can get a new arrangement of music, downloadable of course, for just about $4. So it's a pretty good deal and special deal if you get all 11 of the first of the first 11 days. If you get those first 11, we'll give you the 12th arrangement free. Now, not all of these arrangements are holiday themed. Many of them are, but some of them are just classical music that you'll be able to use any time of year and for anything. This year's theme is is medleys, mashups and merriment. And so each arrangement has a couple of tunes woven in there one way or another. So they're especially fun. So if you haven't been following along, then you're not on our email list because we always send out these promotions by email. So I would suggest two things. First of all, check out what's happening on our 12 days page, use the link in the Show Notes to this episode and you'll go right to the landing page and you can see what's been going on in our 12 days so far. If you aren't on our email list, then While you're@heartmastery.com, get on that email list and that way you'll get a notification when each one of the new days is ready for you. So some of these arrangements, I mean, I like them all, but some of them I'm pretty excited about, and I certainly hope that you check them out. So that's our 12 days of harp happiness happening now at Harp mastery now through December 12th, obviously. So check that out. And that's all I have to add to your snowball, but I did want to let you know about that. So let's start talking about what really happens in this Christmas snowball. We're really talking about emergency learning skills. Think about how you normally would learn a piece, and you've got your own particular method that you like to do. Whether you start hands separately or hands together, or whether you start very slowly or in sections, or from the beginning or from the end or from the middle. However you learn a piece, generally you probably aren't learning it by tomorrow, you're not learning it, so it's ready in a couple of days. You've got plenty of time to get it learned, and so that's not the process that's going to work in this kind of situation. Now, I'm sure you're thinking, and you're right, that if you were an excellent sight reader, this would all be a lot easier. Really good sight readers have a lot of this figured out, although I still have some techniques and some tactics here that are going to help you even if you're a good sight reader, because these are the ones that I have had to use and so you'll enjoy these too. But it's okay if you're not a good sight reader. These are exactly the techniques that you're going to need for compensating for that and still getting this stuff playable one way or another. So it's all about these emergency learning skills. Extra bonus here. Although you won't want to learn a piece like this every time, a lot of what you're going to learn in this process is going to become really helpful. When you do have all the time you need to learn a piece, you're going to find that these are terrific shortcuts and perhaps ones that you hadn't considered. So these are going to be really helpful to you in the long run, not just when you are, you know, watching that snowball come down the hill at you. I've divided these strategies into two categories. One, which is really about learning the piece now, what you need to do to get it ready now. And so those are the ones we'll talk about first. Then we're going to talk about what you can play instead of what's written on the page, or instead of at least everything that's written on the page. So we'll talk about some possibilities, and then, yes, we'll talk about how to say no. But right now we're going to focus on how to learn it. Now, the idea here is that you're going to decide what is the least amount of music that you can play and still add to the musical experience. Right? If you had a lot of time, then you could play every single thing on the page, and it would all be ready and you'd be fine with it. Granted, there are some times when even enough time isn't right because you think, wow, this part is just beyond me, or it's not suited to the harp or whatever it happens to be. But if you had plenty of time, you'd be able to do a pretty good approximation of what's there on the page. But we don't have time. So we want to figure out what we can play. And not the most we can play, but the least that we can play and still have it add to the experience. Now, if it's a solo, of course you get to choose. Remember, you don't have to play the hardest thing in the world. Play the easiest thing. Play something that you feel good about. If they're adding another solo onto the program, all you have to do is make it a beautiful one. It does not have to be the most spectacular one. It's Christmas. Meditative, meaning slow, is fine. But if it's playing with a choir anthem, if you're the sole accompaniment for that anthem, then the most that you could do would be all of the accompaniment. The least you could do would be enough of the accompaniment for the choir to sing along with. And this may be something that, you know, may be out of your wheelhouse, or it might be something where they're going to have a piano or an organ play along with you. So all you need to do are, you know, add in some things that you can play. Playing along with congregational hymns is another thing. So we're going to go over some specific suggestions in a moment. But realize here that the big idea is to cut out everything except for what you can play, what will add to the music, and what would be fun to play. Ooh, yes, Right. It's not just all about obligation here. It's, yes, about what you can play and, yes, certainly what will add to the music, but also what would be fun. So let's start with what you can play, how to figure that out. Remember that what you can play doesn't mean what you would eventually be able to play if you had time to practice. It really means what you can play now or with a day to look at the music. So you really need to scale back your expectations for yourself and realize that it's not about playing all the notes. It's not about what you could do if you had time. It's about what you can do now. I realize this is a stretch for those of you who are overachievers like me, but scale back your. Not just your expectations, but your understanding of what excellence is. If you want to achieve excellence, then it has to look like it's not a struggle. It has to not be a struggle. It just needs to sound beautiful, confident and expressive. And you can't do any of those things if you're struggling. So how do you figure out what you can play? Play well. Play through the piece at home. Play through it at tempo. There's no time to work up to tempo. We've got to figure out how fast it's going to go and how we're going to keep up. And we need to know it now. And the reason you start at tempo is because all of your decisions, starting from, with the fingering or the pedaling or the levers, what you're going to leave in, what you're going to leave out, they're all based on how fast that piece is going to go. And some of these pieces, as beautiful and relaxed as they sound, have a way of being faster for us to play. I mean, think about something like, oh, Holy Night. It's a nice, slow sort of a piece, but those notes and those arpeggios go by pretty quickly. So we really need to understand what tempo is going to require of us. And then we need to cut out everything that isn't going to work. And at tempo, of course, your choices are going to depend on how many days you have to get this ready. If it has to be ready in two days, you might have one level of what you can play. If you actually have two weeks, you might have another. But the sooner you make your decisions, the better. Off you'll be, because you don't want to be practicing it for that first week. And then you go to rehearsal and you find out that, ooh, you've really made choices that are still too ambitious, and you need to go back and refigure out what you're going to do. So don't start with the minimum and then add things back if you can. I realize this is a different way of working from what we usually do, but find what your minimal contribution can be. You know, how little can I play and still have it sound like it's supposed to, or still, you know, realize the expectation for the part. So start from the minimum, figure out what you can play. Start at tempo. Next we get to figure out what will really add to the music. Often what will happen is a choir director will give you a piece of music and say, oh, you know, would you play along on this? The choir's singing it, the organ's going to be playing. There's some other instruments playing. But I think the harp could really add here. So think about what would add. What will the music require? What could you put in? Think in terms of harp stuff. So think in terms of arpeggios, think in terms of chords, and think in terms of glissandos. So look for those kinds of things that you could add, knowing that the whole thing isn't going to depend on you. The music's going to be happening anyway. We're just adding that special harp magic. So figure out where you could do that. Now, if even when you're mic'd in a big church with a big ensemble and the choir singing, maybe even the congregation singing, even when you're miked, the harp could still be very much in the background. So one thought is to look for holes. Look for. I call these holes. They're maybe not just holes, but those places where the singers are holding a note or maybe in between verses, little interludes, those places where the harp is really going to add and people are going to hear it. Don't spend time learning portions of the piece that no one will hear. You want to figure out where you're going to make a difference and then practice that and ignore everything else. Now, the third category, my favorite one, thinking about what would be fun to play. Sometimes there's a piece that you really love or a part of an arrangement that's fun to play, that even if you don't think anybody's going to hear it, you're still going to enjoy playing it. So go ahead and play it. You Know, it doesn't matter. If you love playing it, that's terrific. So go right along with it or figure out how much of it you can play and then do that. But if you want to play along with the piece, whether it's a hymn or a choir selection, you can go ahead and do that. I mean, do check with the choir director first, the music director, make sure that that's okay. But if you want to play along with it just because it's fun, why not? And then you get to decide what you play. So here's the challenge. What can you play instead of what's written there? Because you could just play those regular old notes there, and that might be great for you, but nobody's going to hear them. And if that's okay, that's fine. But if you want to just add a little bit more, make it a little bit more special, make it more fun for you to play, then you get to choose. We don't want to rewrite music that takes too long. We don't have that kind of time. But what could you do instead of what's written? I'm going to give you some choices. And these are the fun things. These are the things that will really make some of that Christmas magic in that service or concert, whatever it is you're playing. So here is how I decide what I'd like to play instead of what's written there. First of all, if there's a melody line, if there's a piece with other instruments or a hymn, go ahead and play the melody line. You can always just play the melody line by itself and maybe play it in octaves so that your left hand is playing with the right hand. You can even play it an octave higher. And that way you can feel more like you're being heard, maybe even if you aren't, but you're contributing, you're adding, and it's going right along with the program. It's effective and it's easy. Something like this. So here's the first Noel, for instance. And the choir director in our imaginary snowball scenario has said, oh, would you play along with all the hymns? First Noel is one of those hymns. Well, here's one of the things you could do. Just take the regular old melody and play it an octave higher in the right hand and have your left hand play along an octave lower. Sounds great. Something like this.

Right? Easy peasy. Works really well and not hard to do. But of course, you could also do this with a harmony line. So if you have a hymnal that has harmony, harmony parts in it. What you could do is just have that in front of you and go ahead and play the alto line or the tenor line. Play it higher. Play it like a little desk hand. It's great reading practice. For one thing, one of the fun ones to do is that alto line in Angels we have Heard on High. Always a fun one to do. Now you know how the melody goes right in the chorus with all those glorious. It goes like this.

Well, you could certainly go ahead and play along with that. But think how much fun it might be to play the alto line with it. So that it was. Here.

Is one version of the alto line. There are others. And yeah, it's got an accidental in it, but that could be fun. Or you could work your way around it. But you could do it in octaves again and an octave higher so it sounds like a little descant like this.

And once again, there are different versions of that alto line. But that's a nice simple one. Whatever you see is something you can do. So we could play the melody, we could play a harmony. But let's think about some real harpiness here. What if you'd like to add some arpeggios? There's nothing harpier than an arpeggio, unless it's maybe a glissando. But arpeggios are so wonderful. They're rich, they've got some motion to them and they're. And they can be very helpful for filling in and avoiding accidentals. One of those Christmas carols that shows up in those Christmas Eve services is It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. And that melody line, or even a harmony line, that can be a nuisance to play because there are so many accidentals. It sounds terrific. And of course, people think it's a great one for harps to play along on because it talks about harps right there, those angels playing their harps of gold. But. But that doesn't mean that it's easy for us to play. Those heavenly angels must not have levers or petals to worry about. So one of the things you can do here is add arpeggios instead and make it a background. And you can do them in a nice comfy range for you.

You don't have to do them higher to be heard. You can do them right in the middle of the harp. And you know, if people can't hear it, they're not really listening. That's what I say. But do be careful as you add them to watch for the accidentals that happen. You don't have to play them. You just have to stay away from those notes so that they're not in your arpeggios. But it Came Upon a Midnight Clear with an arpeggio accompaniment. Really easy to do something just like this. Now.

That'S one of those places right there. You want to stay away from that F sharp, which is usually in. In an inner part someplace. And you don't want to be playing your F natural while somebody else is playing an F sharp because it's going to sound not nice. So just stick with your. Stick with the notes that are going to work.

Once again, this is a really nice thing to do, but keep it within your skill level. You know, if you can say, all right, all I can play are the B flat arpeggios, and I'm going to play every time there's a B flat chord, then that's what you do. Or you say, all right, I'm going to play the B flat ones and the F ones, and that's all I'm going to do. So you can highlight those where you're going to play and just play those. You don't have to play everything all the time. You have to decide what works for you. Let me rephrase that. You get to decide what works for you. This is your choice and you get to make it. So make a choice that you enjoy getting back to that fun thing again, right? Okay, so those were some arpeggios. What about chords? If there are a lot of chords in something, you may not need to play all of them. Perhaps just play a chord on the first beat of the measure, or only on other beats as fillers when the singers are holding a note. This is what I was talking about before when I was talking about playing in the holes. Silent Night is a great example of this. Lots of times people want you to play along on Silent Night. Accompanying the congregation just with the harp is a little bit trickier because you have to actually be able to lead the congregation. And that's not a beginner skill. But if you are playing along, you know, everybody else is playing Silent Night, or the organ's playing Silent Night, and they just want the harp to add. The best place to add is in the holes. And this is what I mean. So 6, 6, 8 is the usual time signature for Silent Night. And so here's the whole. The melody is like this.

Right? So that would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6. Well, those fives and sixes are the wholes. So you could play chords There. And sometimes I play low chords, sometimes I like to play higher chords. It depends on my mood and what the room is like, what's happening. So it could be something like this. I 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2 and 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4th, 5, 6. 1,2, 3, 4, 5, six. So it can be very simple. You're just playing on two beats of the measure. And the nice thing about Silent Night is there are probably only three chords you have to do. So that works really well. But that's what I mean by playing in the holes. And you could play low, rich chords.

You could play higher chords.

You could play big chords or little chords. It depends on what you like. Playing with one hand, playing with two, doesn't matter how many notes. You are just playing pretty, pretty chords. And that's the kind of heart music people want to hear. And it's going to make you feel really special, going to make you feel really good. So pick the chords you want to play. Do it that way. This is one of my favorite things to do. Last item about what you could play. When you don't know what else to play, try glissando. Glissandos are great, and glissandos are the contribution that is unique to us. Nobody else does this. And it always sounds special. It always makes people just, ooh, just love what's happening. That's how they know the harp is there. It's the unique contribution that we can make as harpists. So might as well do it now. When would you gliss? You could always gliss at the end. If this is a loud piece, just sort of gliss Hollywood style, like this maybe. Let's see.

Could work if it's a very soft end, or maybe it's a soft piece. You could just.

Do some very soft glissandos. Or you can always use it when there's a key change or going into the bridge of something. So, for instance, even in Silent Night.

Here'S everybody else playing Silent Night.

Isn't that nice? Just a pretty rich harp glissando right there, going into that middle section of the piece. Use your musical intuition. You have musical sense, musical intuition. That's why you're here. You're playing the harp. We know you get it. So just use your own best judgment and put in that glissando where you think it fits. It's going to work. It's going to be beautiful and it's going to be special. All of these suggestions are ones that work best for Congregational singing, or for choir anthems where the director has just asked you to add some harp magic. But if you are faced with something where you actually have to play all the notes or none at all, you need to remember that saying no is an honorable option. You're allowed to say no. Now, here are some ways to say no. You can always start your no with a yes, and this is actually a maybe. If you don't want to say no right away, if you have the luxury of a little bit of time, you can always say, well, yes, I can see that would be great. And I will practice it tomorrow and let you know if I'm going to be able to handle it or how much of it I will be able to handle. So it's a lovely maybe, and it can make you feel good because it puts off your decision a little bit. But if that decision turns out to be a no, you still are going to have to say no. So be prepared. But that's your yes and response, right? This is. This is your maybe. Or you could do a response that is just really putting it on your own terms, where you're saying, well, yes, I can see that would be great. Let me ask you this. Would it be possible to play this instead? Like, maybe, would it be possible to play this arrangement that I already know? Or maybe would it be possible to play just these chords? Or would it be possible just to add a couple of glissandos? Or would it be possible to just play along with the melody instead of whatever it is you're being asked to do? For instance, in O Holy Night, maybe the arpeggios in your harp arrangement that you like to play, they're probably easier for you to play than what's in any arrangement the choir director would give you. And so, you know, you might be able to swap that out. But do take the time to make sure that those arrangements match up in terms of the number of measures, in terms of the keys and in terms of the actual harmony, the actual chords you're playing, because they might not match up directly. So be careful about that, but make suggestions about alternatives. Right? Could I do this instead so that you're saying no to the first option, but you're presenting an alternative possibility.

With those options in mind, remember that you are allowed to just say, no, my practice time's already spoken for. I don't have time to work on anything else. Or, it's not as easy on the harp as it seems on the piano. Or, I can't do this right now, but I'D love to do it next year. Lots of ways to say no here. You don't have to just say, oh, I can't do that. But you could. You could just say, oh, I'm so sorry. I can't. They'll work it out. That's their job. So, you know, don't commit to anything that you aren't going to feel good about doing.

Now, before we wrap up this episode, let me give you one last reminder. I sort of brushed by this a second ago, and I want to be really clear about it. If you are taking an arrangement that you have and matching it up with a congregational hymn or something else, do make sure that those arrangements match up. The first thing you want to do is make sure they're in the same key.

For instance, most people play Silent Night in B flat. Every once in a while there will be a C major, Silent Night. And in fact, some of the Silent Night arrangements we harpists have are, you know, tailored to lever harps, particularly that don't have all the key flexibility. So you might find a lever harp arrangement or an easier arrangement that's great, that you love, but it's in C major. Make sure that the congregation you're going to play with is singing in C major, because if it's not, if they're in B flat major, then your arrangement won't work. And you're either going to have to play from the part that they're giving you, or find your own B flat major arrangement or make your own transposition. So. Or say, no, but be sure you're in the same key. Be sure that the number of measures the same. You know, are there interludes between verses? You know, how is it going to fit? Make sure that it fits. And then there are differences in harmony sometimes, too. So, you know, we might have very, very common chords, like 1, 4, 5 chords, but maybe they're using an arrangement that has something with a few more accidental, something a little bit jazzier. So be sure that the chords that you're planning to play are the chords that they're planning to play. So do your homework with that before you just dive in and figure it's going to work. You want to get this figured out before you actually rehearse with the group, if possible. So, you know, see if you can. Because it just makes it easier, right? So see if you can get that figured out. Now, I realize you may want to go back and listen to this episode and take notes, write down some of those possibilities, and you may want to come back to this I'm thinking in a week or two when all of a sudden you're faced with a snowball situation. But remember, the snowball doesn't have to induce panic. The idea behind all of these suggestions is to help you be calm, help you play the harp the way you want, help you make that whole Christmas experience more special for everyone that's there. Just add that harp magic without any of the frenzy. So do take a, you know, take a moment and remind yourself that you can put more magic in the season, but only if you're not panicking about it, right? So we're going to get out from under the snowball, make it a little one and not one that bowls us over. Okay, quick reminder, we've got that 12 days of harp happiness happening and you can find the link to the landing page directly here in our show Notes. This is episode 133 if you are needing to search through the website or your own podcast app.

So do subscribe. If you have a podcast app that you like to use, you can subscribe to this and those episodes show up automatically, by the way. Or you can just look for episode 133 on the podcast tab of the Heart Mastery website. But remember, if you want to get automatic notifications about the arrangements that come out every day, all you need to do is be on our email list. And if you go to heartmastery.com, you'll be able to find a way to sign up for our email list there as well. So next week here on the podcast, we are talking about stillness. Today was all about the snowball and the busyness. But next week, that last Monday before Christmas, we're going to be talking about stillness, about the value of stillness in your playing, in your mindset, how to bring more stillness to your harp experience. And we'll just be spending the week helping you be just nice and calm so you can experience everything you love about the season, whether you're in a harp playing frenzy or not. So stillness next week on the podcast. In the meantime, remember, every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe. More harp magic to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your harp happiness every day. See you next time.